


Hurricane in between Us

by sunflower_hz



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:41:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23660992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflower_hz/pseuds/sunflower_hz
Summary: Harry.Zayn hears before he sees. Just his voice. Just the one word. So strange the way the mind weaves sound with emotion. It hits him hard and fast. He closes his eyes for a bit, thankful that Harry can’t see his face.He should have expected it – of course Harry would be here. But he didn’t think, didn’t prepare. How does one prepare?
Relationships: Zayn Malik & Harry Styles, Zayn Malik/Harry Styles
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27





	Hurricane in between Us

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while since I've written. So please be kind. Criticism is welcome. Love.

Harry fights his way through Monday’s early afternoon traffic to get to the hospital. The only reason he isn’t risking life and limb to get there is that Gemma called him from the A&E herself. She’d had a pretty bad panic attack, but she was fine now. That’s all she says on the call, over and over. “I’m fine.” It should help.

He feels his stomach bottom out the moment he gets the news. Ever since his older sister told him about her struggle with her mental health, about how she had anxiety and had gone through a bout of depression, he hasn’t quite felt the same. He is so used to treat Gemma like she’s the one person in the family who’s got it all sorted out. She’s always there for him, giving him the best advice, being stoic and incredibly supportive of their mum. It’s just not fair that she’s having to go through her own struggle.

Harry insisted that she call him if she needs anything – to talk, a ride to the therapist’s or even if she wants company over tea. After all, Gemma is the one who’s always held him while he cried and made the world keep spinning when he felt like it won’t anymore. His sister is everything to him.

“You’re busy, Harry,” Gemma had said when made her promise to seek his help, with a small smile. “Or you’re out of the country. This is manageable. I’m fine.”

“I’ll fly in if I have to,” he’d insisted.

The nightmare he was flung into hearing the words Gemma and hospital in the same sentence is not something he was prepared for.

His fingers choke the steering wheel then pound against it. He just wants to get there and make sure she is okay. He drums his hand against the steering wheel again, impatient and scared. But she isn’t hurt. Not physically, hasn’t been in an accident.

Half an hour later, Harry is sat with Gemma, trying to rein in his worry and deal with exactly what happened. He tries his best to listen and hear his sister telling him that she is okay. When he can’t sit any longer, he goes in search of the doctor. If they aren’t keeping her, he wants her out of there. And if she needs to be there, then they sure as hell should do something.

He hates hospitals, feels like he is coming out of his skin just being inside those sterile white walls with the white floors and quiet staff who always know more about the people you love that you yourself do. He talks to one doctor with no luck – not surprising – then hits the bathroom. He isn’t gone more than fifteen minutes, but when he returns, Gemma isn’t alone.

He almost stumbles, catches himself, then freezes when he sees the back of the person sitting at Gemma’s bedside. It doesn’t matter that almost five years have passed. He would know that hair and back anywhere. His breath leaves him on one word.

“Zayn.”

Harry.

Zayn hears before he sees. Just his voice. Just the one word. So strange the way the mind weaves sound with emotion. It hits him hard and fast. He closes his eyes for a bit, thankful that Harry can’t see his face.

He should have expected it – of course Harry would be here. But he didn’t think, didn’t prepare. How does one prepare?

When Zayn finally turns, familiar green eyes meets his, knocking the breath from his lungs as decisively as a hard fall. There is shock in Harry’s eyes too, though he does a quick job of covering it.

Zayn stands on unsteady legs and faces Harry, his chest squeezing. _It shouldn’t be this way. It shouldn’t hurt after all this time. Why does it hurt?_

For a long beat, they only stare at each other. Time seems to stop and nothing else exists. The blood pulses in Zayn’s ears like ripples of the past.

He has imagined this moment a thousand times, in a thousand different ways. Harry would say he was sorry, run to him, say that he’d been wrong, that he hated how much time they’ve lost. Instead Harry stands rigid, staring.

Zayn thinks maybe something crosses Harry’s face, a face he knows as well as his own, but it is swiftly covered and replaced by confusion. Then betrayal. Even anger.

“How…” Harry stops, gathers himself, because this Harry is nothing if not all gathered together. “What are you doing here?”

“Zayn drove me here,” Gemma answers before Zayn can. “We were meeting for lunch.”

Harry doesn’t move for the longest time, and Zayn tries to breathe through the shock of it, seeing Harry and hearing him. More ripples. Zayn swallows.

“You two were hanging out?” Harry’s voice is low, his eyes dark and fierce, potent as they have always been.

Zayn barely manages to speak. “Not exactly. I was meeting her for a work thing. A… charity thing, to be exact.”

“How did this happen? My sister could have been in a serious accident,” Harry says, turning on Zayn.

The questions and accusations cut through him before Zayn has a chance to say more. Harry doesn’t look like he wants to hear it. Still looking for somewhere to lay blame. Still finding Zayn an easy target.

“Harry,” Gemma sits up straighter, reaching for his arm. “Stop it.”

Zayn should go, but before he can move, a woman enters the room. Anne. Gemma and Harry’s mum. Probably not the hospital scene she expected. Zayn barely has time to see the woman he’d once thought of as a mother before Harry goes on. Ignoring his mum, he focuses solely on his elder sister.

“Is this the friend you told me you’re meeting for lunch?” Harry points at Zayn like a leper, like the enemy.

“Yeah.” Gemma pauses. “We’re friends.”

Harry pulls at his hair, turns, paces a few steps away, then stalks back. “Am I the only sane person in the room?” Harry’s hot gaze is back on Zayn now, his eyes full of accusation. “What are you doing being friendly with my sister? What do you want from her? Do you think this is okay?”

“Harry.” Anne interrupts her son’s tirade with a hand on his arm, before crossing to Zayn and pulling him in for a hug. “Good to see you, darling.”

“I wish it was under different circumstances,” Zayn tells her, giving Anne’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. He looks at Harry. “We were at the restaurant, so I drove Gemma here. I didn’t mean any harm.” As soon as the words are out, he hates how defensive he sounds.

Harry stands at Gemma’s side, as though he needs to protect his sister from Zayn. That hurt. It all hurt. Especially Harry looking at him the way he had five years ago. Like he wants Zayn gone.

Zayn bends down slightly to plant a quick kiss on Gemma’s cheek. “I’ll catch up with you later, Gems. Call me.”

“Thanks, Zayn.”

“Sure.” He chances a quick look at Harry in case it’s another five years before he sees him again. Then he rushes past Anne and into the hall for some much-needed air. The hallway isn’t nearly far enough, and his only thought is to get outside. Get to his car, blast some air conditioner and get back to his home. He barely makes it five steps.

“Zayn.”

His name on Harry’s lips stops him so suddenly, he knows a part of him doesn’t want to get away from Harry. The bland white and gray tiles at his feet stare back at Zayn until they go blurry. Zayn makes himself face Harry.

He looks the same. Tall. His hair cut short, but still curling around his ears and temple. He is wearing blue jeans and a black t-shirt that looks like it’s from his own set of merchandise. Zayn almost smiles. If it isn’t like Harry to wear his own merch to a hospital, Zayn doesn’t know what is.

Harry stares at him, not speaking. Funny how he could find the words to accuse Zayn just a few minutes back, but none to make him feel better now that they are alone.

A nurse walks swiftly past. A call for a doctor repeated on the PA. Once, Zayn had been able to read every thought in Harry’s eyes. Once, he’d hidden nothing from Zayn. Now his chiseled features and set jaw, green eyes, and the dark brows drawn over them give up nothing.

Harry takes a step forward, lifts his hand just slightly and Zayn holds his breath for what Harry might say. Zayn hates himself for even thinking that after all this time it could matter.

“Mr. Styles?” A young man in a white coat stops beside Harry, interrupting the moment. “Are you here with Gemma Styles?”

“Yes, that’s my sister.”

“Great. I’ll just speak with her, then we’ll get you out of here.”

Harry nods, and the doctor moves past him. He doesn’t follow the doctor into Gemma’s room and Zayn wishes he’d just go. 

Harry doesn’t know what to say to Zayn. What do you say to someone who meant the world to him and just left him without the blink of an eye?

Zayn faces him, a few feet between them. They stand there for a long minute, just staring at each other. Maybe he wants to look at Harry as much as Harry wants to look at him. He wonders what Zayn is remembering because Harry remembers everything.

Zayn’s eyes with their impossibly long lashes still manage to take his breath away. For a second, Harry’s gut twists over what had been. What is gone. Zayn’s shortly cropped hair was a lilac colour and Harry secretly loves it. He’s never had the guts to dye his own hair, in fear of what he’d look like. The farthest he’d gone was getting light brown highlights.

But Zayn has always loved experimenting with his hair. Harry remembers the first time he’d walked into a One Direction meeting after a weekend away with a bright blonde streak right above his forehead. Their management had thrown a full blown strop over it and demanded that he dye it back that instant. Zayn had stood his ground and refused to change it. Finally, they’d come to the compromise that Zayn would say interviews when asked that it was his girlfriend’s mother who’d dyed his hair. Obviously reluctant with the plug, but he’d eventually agreed. Harry had always admired Zayn’s ability of picking his battles back in the day.

Zayn now looks …. not really older, but more mature. Just as beautiful, his face more sculpted, cheekbones even more pronounced. No other man had ever meant anything to Harry. Hell, he can’t even remember another man’s face in that moment.

“Your hair looks good,” Harry says. An idiotic thing to say when he really wants to tell Zayn how good he looks all over and how even though things had gone wrong between them, it is still good to see him. But Harry doesn’t say any of that.

“Thanks.” Zayn lifts his chin slightly, his shoulders stiff as if bracing for a hit. “You look good too. The same.”

Harry can barely breathe past the lump in his throat and the knot in his belly. Even with everything swirling around him, Harry can’t take his eyes off the man looking at him like Harry was the one who broke his heart and has now come to finish Zayn off.

“I just….,” Zayn starts, then clears his throat. “Listen, I didn’t know Gemma didn’t tell you that we were meeting today. She’s always been like a sister to me and when she called me about the charity thing I couldn’t say no.” He pauses, then glances at Harry as if to gauge his reaction. His shoulders drop. “No, actually, that’s not true. I didn’t want to say no. I wanted to do my part. But if you have a genuine problem with me working with her, I’ll back off. I won’t like it. But I will.”

Zayn makes Harry ache for him, making him crazy, and Harry can’t even explain to himself the anger that Zayn can still do both. Zayn would have been expecting him at the hospital. Harry is the one who’s been blindsided.

Like a bot of lightening Zayn has flashed back into his life without warning. _No, not my life_ , Harry reminds himself. _My sister’s life_. Behind his back and without a word for him. “I want to know how long you and Gemma’s been in touch. Did you know she was going to…?”

“Have a panic attack?”

“Yes. And did you know she’s had them before?”

“Because you still think people should know things before they happen?”

“That’s not what this is about.”

Zayn shakes his head. “You’ll have to ask Gemma. All I know is one minute we were at the restaurant and then she looks like she’s seen a ghost. I don’t know if it’s something she saw, something she heard. Hell, it could be something she remembered. I didn’t ask. I just helped her breathe normally again and drove her here. And told her that she should call you or Anne to come and get her.”

Something wavers in Zayn’s voice as if he isn’t only talking about Gemma. Harry wants to know what and why. Two people who’d slept together, touched every part of each other, and now struggle to even look each other in the eye. But that was a long time ago, a lifetime ago, even if it feels like yesterday. Harry runs his hands through his hair, taking a second to gather himself. “You helped her breathe? How did you…”

“Know how to help?” Emotion flares in his eyes. Anger. Hurt. “I just did. Because I’ve a few of those too. Panic attacks. They aren’t a picnic, Harry. And if you really want to help Gemma, you’ll talk to her instead of interrogating me.” He closes his eyes and lets out a deep breath like he wishes he hadn’t admitted that part about himself. Harry knows Zayn’s face well.

The next second Zayn waves it off like he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. Like it doesn’t matter, like Harry can’t see the hurt in his eyes.

Well, Harry is hurt too, damn it, so he says what is at the surface, dying to come out. Low, rough with years of emotion. “You left me.”

Zayn’s chest rises with a sudden breath. His eyes widen for one second before closing Harry off. “And you let me go.”

They stare at each other, letting the accusations sink in. More hurt. More regret. Harry is two steps towards the door, thinking this is what he wants. For him to be the one walking away this time, but it only adds to the mountain of wrongs.

Harry turns back. “Zayn…”

But Zayn is on the phone and doesn’t look up. Probably doesn’t even hear Harry whisper his name. Just as well.


End file.
